Tag: Peace

Today, with my friend and colleague, the District Principal for Aboriginal Education in Delta, I had the opportunity to work with a group of thirty teachers who teach in a Christian Independent school in British Columbia. In addition to teaching about the timeline of history through an experiential ‘beaded timeline’ and working with Indigenous ways..

We are who we are partly because of who we associate with. Perhaps you remember your parents cautioning you to choose your friends wisely. Perhaps you are a parent who understands this and has given similar advice to your own children. Even the contemporary business literature recommends that as adults we are aware of..

I would like to share with you a quote related to team learning: “Life needs to link with other life, to form relationships where all individuals are better supported by the system they have created. It is impossible to look at the natural world and find an individual…Everywhere we look, we see complex, tangled, messy..

An essential question for adult educators to reflect on is: What matters to me and how can my work advance this in some way? Discovering and acting upon a purpose beyond oneself brings meaning to work and can motivate learners to find meaning also. This leads to a deeper commitment and sense of fulfillment. Having..

As a way of wrapping up this series on the role of wisdom and spirituality in leading self, highlighting the leadership of Dorothy Day and Jean Vanier, I would like to emphasize how they demonstrated Servant Leadership. This leadership style requires a strong orientation to values that allow leaders to serve their people well while..

“…ongoing awareness practice, ongoing commitment to sustainability and people and ongoing engagement with the possible/potential”. As peace leaders we are meant to confront the reality of ordinary life by inquiring and seeking to understand what lies beyond ourselves in a spiritual quest for wisdom. This better equips us to engage daily challenges and inform..

Be faithful to people “Pressed to identify his own strengths, Jean Vanier referred to his faithfulness to people, the fact that once he had entered into real personal contact with someone it was rarely something he broke”.[i] When we walk alongside people, get to know them in their strengths and weaknesses, joys and sufferings they..

By ‘spiritual’ I am referring to a belief in a reality beyond the senses – whether theistic or not – that provides a framework or horizon of significance giving direction to life. Canadian contemporary philosopher Charles Taylor’s views on the secular age and individualism help to contextualize why we need wise, spiritual leaders in a..

As founders of internationally recognized communities (L’Arche and The Catholic Worker), Vanier and Day teach leaders how to build community by valuing the human person no matter their background or beliefs, abilities or disabilities, wealth, prestige, poverty or insignificance. Both leaders see unity and the possibility of integration in a pluralistic world. We might readily..

Canadian philosopher and humanitarian Jean Vanier (1928-) is the founder of 149 L’Arche homes in 38 countries around the world.[i] In these homes people with intellectual disabilities (the residents) live and work side by side with the nondisabled (their assistants) as peers in “mutually transformative relationships.” Jean Vanier emphasizes the great discovery of his life,..